Dear Leados,

Originally Posted by Leados

> Then a lot of researchers are going to end up killing us. Unless
> we integrate within them, which is another option, since there's a
> strong argument that we've stopped evolving since agriculture
> began.

I totally agree with the sense of what you're saying here. This is
an enormous danger to the human race, yet nobody wants to even talk
about it, let alone deal with it.

As I've already said, I think it's very important for philosophers
and theologians to educate themselves and get involved in this issue
and start understanding it and discussing it.

One possibility is to say, who cares? After all, you're going to die
anyway, and I'm going to die anyway, so does it really make any
difference if we all die together in, say, August, 2078? Who cares?

I'd really like to see a "Planet of the Apes" type movie to see how
it's all going to turn out, but I don't think that's going to be
playing at my local cinema any time soon.

John

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Mike,

Yes, but isn't the human mind just a kind of computer itself? A lot
researchers think so, and some are looking to "reverse engineer" the
human brain so that it can implemented in computer software, when
computers become powerful enough, and then computers will be just as
creative as humans are.

John

It's my understanding that if our brains are just one big computer, they are analog, not digital and we've been going the wrong direction.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Hopeful Cynic,

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

> Frankly, I don't think they'll be able to do most of that any time
> in the 21st century, I expect the rate of progress in computer
> and information science to slow steadily. This is the usual
> pattern of technological development, an 'S' curve. High-speed
> advancement for a while, followed by a plateau and a changeover to
> slow-and-steady improvement. Right now we're in the 'high-speed'
> area of the S curve, but sooner or later it will very likely level
> off.

You expect the rate of progress to slow steadily? I'm always amazed
when I see something like this. It reminds me of that apocryphal
story about the head of the patent office in 1899 wanting to shut the
patent office down because everything had already been invented.

No, I KNOW the rate of progress for specific technologies slows after a while. Progess in general almost certainly won't for a while yet, but even there, history shows that progress occurs in spurts lasting a few centuries, separated by very long lulls (on the order of millennia).

It remains to be seen if that pattern has broken.

Actually, I agree that we're in a bit of a lull right now, but
that'll be over in 10 years or so. I expect a huge product explosion
again in the 2020s, and the super-intelligent computers by 2030.

Could happen. Pure guesswork if it will or not.

> This is the usual pattern of technological development, an 'S'
> curve.

This isn't exactly right, and I'll use the power of computers as an
example. It's true that each technology paradigm follows an S curve,
but just as each paradigm begins to level off, a new one takes over.

It's exactly right. There's never been an exception in all history.

Ray Kurzweil has tracked the power of calculating machines and
computers back to the 19th century, and found that they follow a
consistent, steadfast exponential growth curve through one technology
after another. The technologies he studied are:

(1) Punched card electromechanical calculators, used in 1890 and 1900
census

(2) Relay-based machine used during World War II to crack the Nazi
Enigma machine's encryption code.

(3) The CBS vacuum tube computer that predicted the election of
President Eisenhower in 1952.

(4) Transistor-based machines used in the first space launches

(5) Integrated circuits - multiple transistors on a chip (Moore's
Law)

Each of these technology paradigms follows an S curve, but whenever
one levels off, the next one takes over.

None of those was a new paradigm, they are all variations on a theme. Modern computers are basically Babbage machines supercharged. The fundamental operating principles of most modern computers, including the supermachines like the Earth Simulator, are the same as the ones Babbage worked out in the 19th century. THAT was the real new paradigm, the one modern computers still express.

Now, a good case can be made that the advent of high-level languages (and perhaps even basic machine language) programming for general-purpose machines might be a new paradigm, or a major extension of the previous one.

Integrated circuits are expected to level off in the 2010s, and then
nanotechnology will probably take over. So the power of computers
will continue to grow in a steadfast exponential growth manner.

Yes, it's certainly possible they'll go on getting faster. That alone won't constitute a new paradigm.

> Note that the driving force for the level-off may not be technical
> limits, but the limits of market demand.

Right now there's a snowstorm -- a blizzard -- of high technology
research projects going on around the world, in private labs,
universities, and government labs. Every nation, including the US,
is pouring funding into these projects because no one can afford to
be left behind. Even if there's no market demand for a year or two,
competition is driving these research projects to go on full speed
ahead.

Yeah, and most of them don't amount to as much as their hype suggests.
They're expanding on the same themes, for the most part. There is some work going on in things like neural nets, that may lead to a genuine new paradigm. We'll see.

> No, we have a good understanding of the physics (at least in
> general) of snowstorms, water phase changes, and we have enormous
> masses of practical data on the behavior of weather systems. We
> can test our models of such functions by the accuracy of their
> predictions.

> We can do none of that in technological forecasting for the
> pregression of artificial intelligence.

OK, you have your probabilistic models for snowstorms, and I've just
described Ray Kurzweil's model for exponential growth of the power of
computers. And yes we can do technological forecasting for growth in
artificial intelligence. There's nothing magic about it.

Nothing is absolutely certain, but forecasts of super-intelligent
computers by 2030 are about as certain as you can get.

John

No, it's pure guesswork, incorporating many assumptions based on pure faith. Nothing you've presented shows anything comparable to our experience-based knowledge of snowstorms.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Leados,

Originally Posted by Leados

> The "test" I was referring to is whether we could beat the
> machines IF they turn on us. They could, but no one at this point
> knows. Why would we let computers design computers in the first
> place? That's the first step down the slippery slope...

I agree with you about the "slippery slope" concern, and you can bet
that that will be a big political and emotional issue when the time
comes.

But you can't stay off the slippery slope for long, because some huge
need comes along.

For example, if our computers are at war with China's computers, then
we're going to want our computers to be as good as possible, even
improving themselves out on the battlefield, because otherwise the
Chinese computers will clobber us.

Sooner or later it's all gonna happen.

John

Unless of course it doesn't. Unless some very fundamental changes occur in computer technology, they won't be at war with each other. Humans will be at war with each other using computers as the tools.

I don't say those changes are impossible, but they are not certainties, either.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Computers are roughly doubling in power every 18 months, and so by
2030, they'll be approximately 100,000 times as powerful as today.
That should be enough power to implement a first generation
super-intelligent computer. By 2050, computers will be about
10,000,000,000 times as powerful as today, and that will certainly be
more than enough.

John

Except that it's very unlikely that Moore's Law will keep operating that way all the way through 2030. It's likely to drop off profoundly in 10 years or less.

Note that all your arguments could have been applied with equal apparent accuracy to automobiles (a technology that still to this day is more important to modern society then computer tech, we live in the Automotive Age even yet) ~100 years ago. They kept getting faster and faster, but then they suddenly leveled off, and haven't gotten any faster for nearly a century. Instead, they've been steadily refined, becoming more fuel-efficient, more comfortable, safer, steadier, more reliable, etc. But they are a 'mature' technology, and have been for many decades now.

They could be made faster, of course, it'd be technically easy, but there's no reason for it.

History suggests that Moore's Law will probably level off when ever-increasing speed stops paying off the ever-higher price required to keep it going. That's already happening for PCs. It's likely to happen for all the computers eventually. The market pretty much always rules in the end.

Progess will of course continue, but in other areas, and speed will keep rising, but more sedately. That's been the pattern of every new field of technology in all history. If computers break it, then it'll be the first time ever. Like cars, computers will reach the 'mature' phase in their natural course.

Originally Posted by Leados

John,

I think the question here is how long can computers keep on doubling in speed? I think in about 10 years or so, current tech is going to run out of space to double like that. I'm sure they're developing new technologies to circumvent that, but I think they're already starting to see that there is a molecular/atomic limit to the way microchips can be made and run. So will the computers gain a critical mass of speed enough to overcome human thought? I still agree with Mike, that humans will probably always be able to outwit a computer; although if the computer is fast enough to think of all responses to something humans are doomed. But All is a superlative, and its doubtful that they will be able to think of ALL possibilities ever.

'ALWAYS' is a big, big word. I've been cautioning John myself about takign the predictions of the tech crowd too seriously, but I certainly am not prepared to say an a true AI is forever impossible. I don't believe that our super-Babbage machines will ever produce one, but I suspect they can exist.

Conceivably, for ex, an AI might be 'grown' using living neural tissue, it can't be ruled out. Likewise, computers based on other principles than Babbage's might well someday be capable of consciousness, for all we know now. It's guesswork either way.

Originally Posted by Leados

John,

I think we can both agree its not very useful to conjecture about this very much.

This issue divides into two sides: Those that think machines will take over the earth, and those that do not. Either is equally plausible and yet implausible.

Also, are there enough raw materials to make the number of robots necessary to destroy the human race? I'm sure there will have to be some very exotic materials developed in order to make the future you speak of happen.

This is fun.

Who knows? If the AIs can be constructed out of silicon, then yes, there's MORE than enough, silicon is one of the most common elements on the planet. Sand, basically, is the raw material for modern computer chips.

If AI's turn out to require 'exotics', matters might be different.

But note that self-replicating machines advanced enough to be very dangerous need not be conscious at all.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike

> Once the computers reach the speed of light, there are still ways
> to increase processing power. They can be made smaller, more
> efficient, and add more processors dividing the load. However, as
> stated there aren't a finite number of possibilities, and no way
> for the computers to think of everything. The very nature of
> following rules doesn't give them a choice, or to be creative.
> They only know what is programmed. Eventually humans would be able
> to work this against them

Yes, but isn't the human mind just a kind of computer itself?

I can answer this one accurately: Nobody knows.

A lot of researchers think so, and some are looking to "reverse engineer" the human brain so that it can implemented in computer software, when
computers become powerful enough, and then computers will be just as
creative as humans are.

John

They're mostly guessing, at this point. There are huge areas of 'terra incognita', so to speak, when we discuss things like brain function, and how that relates to things like 'knowing'.

Originally Posted by Mike

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Mike,

Yes, but isn't the human mind just a kind of computer itself? A lot
researchers think so, and some are looking to "reverse engineer" the
human brain so that it can implemented in computer software, when
computers become powerful enough, and then computers will be just as
creative as humans are.

John

It's my understanding that if our brains are just one big computer, they are analog, not digital and we've been going the wrong direction.

Of course, the hypothesis (it's not strong enough right now to be properly called a theory) that the brain is a computer remains largely untested. It may be true, it may not.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Who knows? If the AIs can be constructed out of silicon, then yes, there's MORE than enough, silicon is one of the most common elements on the planet. Sand, basically, is the raw material for modern computer chips.

If AI's turn out to require 'exotics', matters might be different.

But note that self-replicating machines advanced enough to be very dangerous need not be conscious at all.

I dunno if we could create true artifical intellgence, true artifical intellegence requires a being to self-aware of itself and it's surroundings, I think therefore I am is at the core of human awareness. I frankly doubt there is a genetic or chemical reason behind why we are aware.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike

> It's my understanding that if our brains are just one big
> computer, they are analog, not digital and we've been going the
> wrong direction.

All processes in nature tends to be analog, and we can still use
digital computers to simulate them. For example, colors in nature
are analog, but we represent a color in a digital computer using a
24-bit number. No problemo.

John

Dear Hopeful Cynic,

I'll try to answer any of your questions that I haven't already
addressed in previous postings.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

> Note that all your arguments could have been applied with equal
> apparent accuracy to automobiles (a technology that still to this
> day is more important to modern society then computer tech, we
> live in the Automotive Age even yet) ~100 years ago. They kept
> getting faster and faster, but then they suddenly leveled off, and
> haven't gotten any faster for nearly a century. Instead, they've
> been steadily refined, becoming more fuel-efficient, more
> comfortable, safer, steadier, more reliable, etc. But they are a
> 'mature' technology, and have been for many decades now.

I hope you'll take a look at Chapter 11 "Trend Forecasting" in my
book. The book will be found at
http://www.ww2010.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.book online.

There's nothing wrong with finding that some exponentially growing
quantities eventually level off. However, it rarely "just happens";
it's usually because some physical limit is being reached.

The chapter mentioned above does discuss speed of combat aircraft.
Speed of automobiles isn't discussed. However, the speed of
consumer-purchased autos has been limited by political concerns,
especially passenger safety.

If you want to do a little research, it would be interesting to
research the speed of racing cars over the last century. I would
expect racing cars to produce a more satisfactory result than
consumer cars.

> Except that it's very unlikely that Moore's Law will keep
> operating that way all the way through 2030. It's likely to drop
> off profoundly in 10 years or less.

I already said that Moore's law will level off in the 2010s. After
that, nanotechnology will probably be the new technology to keep
computers on a steadfast exponential growth path.

Nanotechnologies are not blue sky. They're being developed today in
research labs around the world. Take a look at this document:

http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/TheBigDown.pdf

to learn more about them. (This document is actually an
anti-technology screed, but its description of nanotechnologies is
very clear and understandable.)

John

P.S.: After writing the above, I typed "speed of racing cars" into
google, and came up with these pages:

http://www.landspeed.com/learn.html

http://www.landspeed.com/turbo_history.html

I did a quick plot and added an exponential growth trend line, and
here's what I came up with:



That looks pretty good to me!

Dear Tristan,

Originally Posted by Tristan Jones

> I dunno if we could create true artifical intellgence, true
> artifical intellegence requires a being to self-aware of itself
> and it's surroundings, I think therefore I am is at the core of
> human awareness. I frankly doubt there is a genetic or chemical
> reason behind why we are aware.

Self-awareness is very easy. Just add to the computer software
something so that when the computer is asked whether it's self-aware,
it says, "Yes, I'm self-aware." No problemo.

John

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Tristan,

Originally Posted by Tristan Jones

> I dunno if we could create true artifical intellgence, true
> artifical intellegence requires a being to self-aware of itself
> and it's surroundings, I think therefore I am is at the core of
> human awareness. I frankly doubt there is a genetic or chemical
> reason behind why we are aware.

Self-awareness is very easy. Just add to the computer software
something so that when the computer is asked whether it's self-aware,
it says, "Yes, I'm self-aware." No problemo.

John

If you're joking, you need to add a smiley, since humor often travels poorly over the Internet in text.

If not... :-?

Dear Hopeful Cynic,

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

> If you're joking, you need to add a smiley, since humor often
> travels poorly over the Internet in text. If not...

With all due respect, this is a fairly shallow response. And no, I'm
not joking.

Go back to basic definitions and question your basic assumptions, and
you'll see where you made your mistake.

John

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Hopeful Cynic,

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

> If you're joking, you need to add a smiley, since humor often
> travels poorly over the Internet in text. If not...

With all due respect, this is a fairly shallow response. And no, I'm
not joking.

Go back to basic definitions and question your basic assumptions, and
you'll see where you made your mistake.

John

Are we using the same definition of 'self-aware', or we talking about the philosophical point that one can't prove the conscious self-awareness of any entity other than oneself? I don't follow your response.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike

> It's my understanding that if our brains are just one big
> computer, they are analog, not digital and we've been going the
> wrong direction.

All processes in nature tends to be analog, and we can still use
digital computers to simulate them. For example, colors in nature
are analog, but we represent a color in a digital computer using a
24-bit number. No problemo.

John

What you get is unnatural and always in steps rather than waves. Life is imperfect, not to be simulated.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Hopeful Cynic,

I did a quick plot and added an exponential growth trend line, and
here's what I came up with:



That looks pretty good to me!

It looks that a linear fit works better than exponential. For the year 2000, the exponential trend predicts about 1200 mph while the linear predicts about 800 mph. The actual value in 1997 was 763 mph.

Originally Posted by Titus Sabinus Parthicus

The time frame postulated for Humanity's end (c.2100) I can definitely see, assuming we don't do it this 4T, but I'd more likely bet on us doing it to ourselves somehow, in either case.

Actually, however, I can more easily see the end of modern civilization by our own hand, either this 4T or the next, than the biological extinction of humanity. Of course, the end of modern civilization may simply be the first step in a downward progression to extinction. A progression which may take several more centuries to complete, which would, of course, be but the blink of an eye in geological time.

Dear Hopeful Cynic,

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

> Are we using the same definition of 'self-aware', or we talking
> about the philosophical point that one can't prove the conscious
> self-awareness of any entity other than oneself? I don't follow
> your response.

It would be the latter.

Tristan's original comment invoked Rene Descartes' famous "I think,
therefore I am." We can generalize Descartes' remark to
self-awareness: Even assuming that you and I both exist, I still
don't know if you're self-aware, since the only evidence I have is
that you tell me that you're self-aware.

That led to my response that it's easy to make an intelligent
computer self-aware -- just add to its software so that it says it's
self-aware.

However, the definition of self-awareness from www.m-w.com is "an
awareness of one's own personality or individuality." Can a computer
be self-aware under that definition?

I don't see why not. After all, a computer can monitor every part of
itself, and can even watch itself executing instructions. It can
figure out any quirks in its hardware or software that define its
"personality or individuality."

So I guess the final result is: Tell me what you mean by
self-awareness, and I'll tell you how to do it in the software of an
intelligent computer.

John

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike

> What you get is unnatural and always in steps rather than waves.
> Life is imperfect, not to be simulated.

OK, I'll concede that it's "unnatural," but so what? If an entity
can beat you at chess (which today's computers can), does it really
matter whether the entity is analog or digital?

John

Dear Titus,

Originally Posted by Titus Sabinus Parthicus

> Actually, however, I can more easily see the end of modern
> civilization by our own hand, either this 4T or the next, than
> the biological extinction of humanity. Of course, the end of
> modern civilization may simply be the first step in a downward
> progression to extinction. A progression which may take several
> more centuries to complete, which would, of course, be but the
> blink of an eye in geological time.

You're making an assumption similar to ones posted before -- that
somehow technological progress has, or will soon, come to an end.
There's absolutely no evidence to support such a belief, and there's
tons of evidence to support the belief that technological progress
will continue at the same steadfast exponential growth rate.

John

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike

> What you get is unnatural and always in steps rather than waves.
> Life is imperfect, not to be simulated.

OK, I'll concede that it's "unnatural," but so what? If an entity
can beat you at chess (which today's computers can), does it really
matter whether the entity is analog or digital?

John

Actually it just might. Studies have shown that almost everything in life works in waves.

Again, chess has a finite number of possibilities. Life has infinite possibilities. The computer doesn't think, "This will throw him in a loop." It only looks for patterns, and decides the best stragety. The minute a human does some original, not seen before, is the minute computers lost.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike

> Actually it just might. Studies have shown that almost everything
> in life works in waves.

I don't think that makes any difference, but if it does you can use
quantum computing, which is another new technology currently under
development, and which uses waves at the quantum level to do
computations. See http://www.qubit.org/ But there's nothing magic
about waves.

> Again, chess has a finite number of possibilities. Life has
> infinite possibilities.

No it doesn't. At any given time, you have only a finite number of
choices in any decision you have to make.

> The computer doesn't think, "This will throw him in a loop."

Just because you SAY that a computer doesn't think doesn't make it
so.

> It only looks for patterns, and decides the best stragety.

That's all that human beings do. The human brains works by looking
for patterns.

> The minute a human does some original, not seen before, is the
> minute computers lost.

Computers do original things all the time, even in something as
"simple" as chess. Once computers are powerful enough so that they
can select many, many more decision choices than a human could ever
handle, then computers will be far more original than humans, and
humans will be lost.

John

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Titus,

Originally Posted by Titus Sabinus Parthicus

> Actually, however, I can more easily see the end of modern
> civilization by our own hand, either this 4T or the next, than
> the biological extinction of humanity. Of course, the end of
> modern civilization may simply be the first step in a downward
> progression to extinction. A progression which may take several
> more centuries to complete, which would, of course, be but the
> blink of an eye in geological time.

You're making an assumption similar to ones posted before -- that
somehow technological progress has, or will soon, come to an end.
There's absolutely no evidence to support such a belief, and there's
tons of evidence to support the belief that technological progress
will continue at the same steadfast exponential growth rate.

John

Actually, there's no evidence, strictly speaking, for either position, since by definition there can't be.

All you can do it try to project trends, and inevitably a lot of guesswork is involved. A case can be made that technological advancement is currently exponentiating. An equally valid case can be made that it has already slowed down considerably since its late19th/early 20th century peak. It depends on the benchmarks you choose.

Historically, it's a fact that technological advancement has occured in rapid surges lasting a few centuries (most of them were about 300 years long, in fact), separated by long periods of slow change. It's also a fact that advancement since the most recent Enlightenment has been faster and more intense than any previous period of advancement. Whether we're in another such surge, or whether we've passed through a phase change into unlimited expansion, is unknowable at this point.